Want proof that the goals of business and the needs of the most vulnerable
can align? Meet Jeff Brown, fourth-generation grocer and owner of the 10-store
ShopRite regional chain based in Philadelphia. By mixing old-fashioned customer
service with innovative new approaches, Brown is chipping away at the nation’s
jobs challenge, starting in the communities hardest-hit by the financial
crisis.

A second chance for ex-offenders

After being sentenced to jail for five years for selling drugs in his
hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Louis Rivera was determined to turn his life around.
An eighth-grade dropout, he spent his first year in prison preparing for and
obtaining his GED. Upon release, he moved to Philadelphia and sent out dozens
of resumes, hoping, at age 31, to secure the first real job of his life.

ShopRite
is the only grocery-store chain in Philadelphia, and possibly in the nation,
with an explicit focus on hiring ex-offenders.

No employer responded. Louis was frustrated and scared. “I knew I could not
go back to the life I had been leading,” he told me. “I needed a break.”

He walked down the street from his apartment to Jeff Brown’s ShopRite
grocery store, where he had already applied online. He said to the hiring manager, “I’m
not leaving here until you give me a job.” She laughed at his mix of pluck and
desperation, and after listening to his story, gave him that break: a minimum-wage
job in the seafood department.

Louis had gone to the right place. He did not know it at the time, but ShopRite
is the only grocery-store chain in Philadelphia, and possibly in the nation,
with an explicit focus on hiring ex-offenders. Jeff Brown explains that these
employees are just as successful as a group compared to those without criminal
records. “I have not seen evidence that the fears are true,” he says.

Brown believes his success with hiring ex-offenders is due to a strong
partnership with a nonprofit workforce training organization, ABO Haven, that
screens ex-offender candidates to find those who are a good match for the
grocery’s culture, provides training in “soft skills” like how to be successful
in a work environment, and then checks back in with the workers once they are
on the jobs. From a profit perspective, hiring ex-offenders actually saves
Brown money, since workforce-training dollars support the initial screening,
training, and follow-up.

Four years and three promotions later, Louis is a model of the type of
upward mobility that is on the wane in America. As assistant store manager, he
brings home $53,000 per year plus benefits. He has been able to provide for his
fiancée and three children, and now owns a home and two cars. He plans to stay
with the company, and hopes to become a store manager one day.

Greening food deserts

Brown is also one of the first grocers to recognize the profitability of opening large grocery stores in
underinvested low-income communities and communities of color, which other
retailers have fled or avoided. Six of Brown’s stores are
located in areas that were “food deserts” before he opened his doors:
low-income neighborhoods without grocery stores or other healthy food
retailers. Food-desert neighborhoods tend to have higher rates of
diet-related health problems like obesity and diabetes.

A recent study
found that childhood obesity rates are dropping in Philadelphia, suggesting
that the city's efforts to increase access to healthy food are making a difference.

One of those stores is located in West Philadelphia’s Parkside neighborhood.
An African-American community of about 100,000, Parkside went without a
supermarket for nearly three decades.

Since its 2008 opening, the Parkside ShopRite has been an overwhelming
success. It brought 260 jobs to the area, and 40 of them went to ex-offenders.
The store’s roof is covered in solar panels, and the product mix is tailored to
the community’s cultural preferences, including halal products and African food
staples. Like the other stores in the chain that opened in food deserts,
overall sales, revenue, and fresh product sales are on par with suburban
stores.

Brown says that making fresh foods available in communities with limited
access to them is changing people's diets, shifting them away from processed
food to a healthier mix that includes more produce and fresh foods. A recent study
found that childhood obesity rates are dropping in Philadelphia, suggesting
that the city’s efforts to increase access to healthy food in communities and
schools are making a difference.

Creating community hubs

Every ShopRite store includes a community room that community groups can use
for free. A new store opening in North Philadelphia will include two community
rooms, one of which will contain cooking equipment that can be used for
nutrition classes.

Brown is experimenting with bringing other needed services into the stores.
In September 2011, American Heritage Federal Credit Union opened up a branch in
the Parkside store, offering free checking and ATM services with no minimum-balance
requirements. A second branch was opened in the Roxborough store in June 2012.
The banking services are incredibly popular, with lines most days of the week.

More recently, Brown has sought to increase access to affordable health care
in these communities by opening nonprofit clinics in stores. The first clinic
opened five months ago and a second one will open in the Parkside store within
the next several months. The clinic has not been an instant success, but the
model is being tweaked to meet community needs, including implementing a
sliding fee scale for uninsured patients.

Sparked by a public-private partnership

The six ShopRite stores located in Philadelphia’s grocery-poor neighborhoods
could not have opened were it not for the Pennsylvania Fresh
Food Financing Initiative (FFFI), a public-private partnership that
provides start-up funding in the form of one-time loans and grants to help
retailers open or improve food retail stores in underserved low- and moderate-income
communities.

The FFFI program has impressive results: 88 new or renovated stores in
urban, rural, and small-town Pennsylvania, and more than 5,000 jobs created or
retained. And the idea has spread: Fifteen other states have taken steps to set
up similar public-private partnerships. In 2010, the federal government began a
similar initiative, the Healthy
Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), which is also a central pillar of
Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. Since its launch, HFFI has provided
nearly $500 million in loans, tax credits, and grants toward healthy-food
retail projects, including grocery stores, farmers’ markets, cooperatives, food
hubs, and other innovative efforts.

A number
of major cities are getting ready to launch citywide initiatives focused on
hiring ex-offenders using Brown's model.

Brown believes that his comprehensive approach to solving community
challenges is the key to his success. “Believe it or not," he told me, “solving the community’s
problems helps on the financial side as well.” Cultivating strong relationships
with community leaders, for example, helps to increase sales and reduce theft.

He thinks his success can be replicated elsewhere, and has begun a
nonprofit consulting firm, UpLift
Solutions, to share what he’s learned with other business leaders. A number
of major cities are getting ready to launch citywide initiatives focused on
hiring ex-offenders using Brown's model, and other major retailers have
expressed interest as well.

The ShopRite story is proof positive that it is possible to fulfill a
community-oriented mission—to “bring joy to the lives of the people we serve”—while
turning a profit. It also shows how well-crafted public-private partnerships
can be critical to making this happen. Hopefully the model is paving the way
for a new generation of entrepreneurs who are meeting the “triple bottom line”
of people, planet, and profit.

Interested?

It all begins with food: How to restore the health and wealth of inner-city communities.

How to grow food where we need it.

In our increasingly consolidated food
industry, the origins of what we eat are often hidden. How can you find
out where your food is coming from?

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Sarah Treuhaft adapted this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. A trained city planner, Ms. Treuhaft is Associate Director at PolicyLink and an authority on the use of data
and mapping in policy analysis, organizing, and advocacy. She works with
local partners and coalitions to develop and implement equitable
development strategies such as employer-assisted housing and transit-oriented development